Acoustically Speaking...Cedar or Spruce?

According to the folks at Seagull Guitars, Cedar tends to produce a warmer sound and ages faster than spruce. Spruce is brighter and ages more over a longer period of time. Visually, cedar is darker in color with a fairly tight grain pattern. Spruce tends to be very blond with a slightly wider grain pattern.

Music Stuff You May Not Want To Know - Part 1

Our pals over at Music Clout have a page full of how-to style articles that are of interest to anyone in the music business, especially ones that want to become a rich and famous entertainers...and who doesn't want to do THAT?
http://www.musicclout.com/contents/toolboxArticles.aspx

Do You Live in Canada and Buy Music Gear? If So, Read This

Here is some interesting information regarding customs fees and UPS Brokerage fees for musicians that live in Canada and order products from the US. Pricebeat Music cannot verify and does not validate this information and we do use UPS to ship products to Canada. This information is provided purely it's apparent newsworthiness (yep, I said it) so use it at your discretion. So without further adieu...

http://trueler.com/2010/09/13/ups-brokerage-fees-total-scam-fraud-cheating-avoid-it/

P.S. - Here's the UPS page on brokerage and international shipments.

Holiday Shipping Deadlines for USPS, FedEx and UPS

Avoid an OOPS moment by looking at these holiday shipping schedules if you still haven't ordered Christmas gifts online yet...


United States Postal Service (USPS)

• First Class Mail, Thursday, December 20th
• Priority Mail, Friday, December 21st
• Express Mail, Saturday December 22nd

For more info please visit: http://www.usps.com/holiday/

Federal Express (FedEx)

• FedEx Express Saver, Wednesday, December 19th
• FedEx 2day, Thursday, December 20th
• FedEx Standard Overnight, Friday, December 21st

For more info please visit: http://www.fedex.com/us/service-guide/holiday-schedule.html

United Parcel Service (UPS)

• UPS 2nd Day Air, Thursday, December 20th
• UPS Next Day Air, Friday, December 21st

For UPS holiday deadlines, see http://www.ups.com/media/news/en/ups_2012_year_end_schedule.pdf
      

Schecter tops the Guitar lists for 2012

http://www.schecterguitars.com/News/20121213/255/Schecter-tops-the-lists-for-2012.aspx

Direct-Box Recording Tricks

Here's an interesting article regarding the use of direct boxes for recording, compliments of Harmony Central...

http://www.harmonycentral.com/docs/DOC-1325